Modern aircraft display systems are capable of displaying a considerable amount of information such as aircraft position, attitude, navigation, and terrain information. Most such displays additionally allow a flight plan to be displayed from different views, such as a perspective view or primary flight display, a vertical situation display, and/or a lateral situation display, which may be displayed individually or simultaneously. When displayed simultaneously, the display is often referred to as an interactive navigation display (INAV). The vertical situation display and the lateral situation display are two-dimensional views of the aircraft flight plan, and may include, for example, an aircraft symbol, waypoint symbols, line segments that interconnect the waypoint symbols, and/or range rings. These views may also include various map features including, for example, weather information, terrain information, political boundaries, and navigation aids.
The vertical situation display and lateral situation display may also provide a user interface that allows the pilot or co-pilot of the aircraft to monitor and/or change the flight plan and/or path. For example, the pilot or co-pilot may maneuver a cursor to select a waypoint symbol on one of these views, resulting in the creation of a pop-up menu. The pilot or co-pilot can then interact with various menus to view the details of, or modify, an existing waypoint. Further, the pilot or co-pilot is able to utilize the user interface to create additional waypoints. For example, the pilot or co-pilot might interact with a selectable menu on the second image to provide the information necessary (e.g., latitude, longitude, and altitude) to set the waypoint. A new waypoint symbol would then appear in the appropriate location on the second image. Alternatively, the pilot or co-pilot might maneuver the cursor to the desired location of the vertical situation display or the lateral situation display and provide an input (e.g., click a button) resulting in the generation of a pop-up menu. The pilot or co-pilot may then interact with various pop-up menus to create the new waypoint.
While the vertical situation display and the lateral situation display include functionalities that allow the pilot to change the flight plan, the pilot must still use a separate mode control panel (MCP) or guidance panel (GP) to change the autothrottle (A/T) and autopilot (A/P) functions of the autopilot flight director system (AFDS). Thus, in order to change the course of an aircraft, a pilot is often required to use the vertical and/or lateral situation display to program a flight path change, followed by a separate input on the MCP or GP to make a corresponding command change to the A/T and/or A/P system. Thus, the pilot is often forced to divert his/her attention by having to look at and make inputs at multiple input sources along the flight control panel.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide improved display systems and methods for providing displays that overcome the deficiencies in the prior art. It is further desirable to provide system integrations that will reduce the pilot dependency on multiple avionic systems and provide a more intuitive graphical manner of performing and controlling the various autopilot and autothrottle modes. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the inventive subject matter and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the inventive subject matter.